


Day 1: Discovery

by GemmaRose



Series: Galra Keith Week [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith Is A Little Shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-15 21:50:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9258641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemmaRose/pseuds/GemmaRose
Summary: After investigating a strange meteor that landed near the Garrison with his friends, Keith comes to the discovery that aliens are 100% real. Also, maybe he is one.





	

Keith stared at himself in the dingy mirror, bent over the bathroom sink, fingers curled like claws against the ancient porcelain. Or, well, likening his fingers to claws was kinda silly now that he actually _had_ claws. The thick purple things curled down in front of the tips of his fingers, sharp enough to rend fabric like butter and possibly even flesh from bone. The rips in his mattress were proof of the former, but he hadn’t had a chance to test the latter yet. Maybe he’d trap a lizard or something later, and try prepping it with his claws instead of his knife.

On second thought, that sounded gross. He’d test his claws some other time. Teeth, too. He bared them at the mirror, tilting his head to get a better look. Yeah, they were all pointy sharp, like needles. Even his molars looked optimized for ripping rather than crushing. Between the teeth and claws, he was pretty damn sure whatever happened had made him carnivorous. That definitely bore further examination.

The cat-like ears sticking up from the sides of his head twitched, and he tugged on one of them. Could he- omg he could deliberately move them. He couldn’t help but stare at the mirror as he flicked his ears forwards and back, swivelling them as far as he was able. He had moveable ears. Prehensile? No, that was for tails. Whatever, he could look up the word later. Right now, he should probably try to figure out what had caused this. Had he interacted with anyone strange in the past month or so? No, he’d only seen the usual guy at the convenience store and his friends from the Garrison. Eaten anything iffy? Another no, his diet was boring as hell. Come into contact with something new?

He paused, staring at the purple fur on his now purple-skinned chest. The meteor. He’d gone to investigate the meteor, and cut himself on the weird purple rock. Purple space rock, purple space fever... purple space Keith. Holy shit, space fever! Keith’s face split in a grin, and he grabbed at his hair, wincing only slightly when he accidentally tugged on one of his ears. He’d been sick with an alien disease! If it was bacterial, then it counted as life. If it counted as life, then that meant he’d been the first human to have contact with extraterrestrial life. Oh, Pidge was going to _flip_!

This was completely worth being violently sick for days on end, worth all the rips in his mattress, worth every single second of pain he’d endured suffering through an _alien_ disease. They had irrefutable proof now, proof that humans weren’t alone in the universe. He was living proof! But, if he went to the Garrison he’d definitely be kept for observation, and he still had to find out what was calling him deeper into the desert. Plus, there was always the possibility that he was still contagious. In fact, it had set in so quickly he was almost definitely still contagious.

His phone buzzed, the sound startling him out of contemplating how it might be transmitted. He'd left his cell charging on his bed, in the other room. He shouldn’t be able to hear it going off like that. It buzzed again, and Keith rushed over to grab it. Precious few people had the number for this cell phone, so no matter who was calling he should definitely answer. The battery symbol in the corner still blinked with only one digit, though, so he flopped down on his bed as he tapped to answer the call. “Hello?”

“Keith?”

“Hey, Pidge.” Keith grinned. “You won’t believe-”

“I thought you were dead, you asshole!” Pidge yelled in his ear, making him wince. “Don’t worry me like that, dammit!”

“Sorry.” he groaned, brushing his bangs out of his eyes with his free hand and rolling onto his back. “Phone died just a bit after I texted you to not come over. I only just plugged it back in.”

“Don’t scare me like that again.” Pidge huffed. “Next time I’ll come kick your damn door down, no matter how infectious you are.”

“I promise I’m feeling better.” Keith attempted a smile. “Might still be contagious, though.”

“Well, since you’re feeling better, wanna come out to the impact site again tonight?”

Keith sat up. “Tonight?”

“Yeah. It’s friday, remember?” Pidge scoffed. There was probably an eye roll in there somewhere too, but Keith couldn’t be sure.

“No.” Keith scowled. “I’ve been sick. Also, did you miss that I’m probably contagious?”

“I’ve seen Hunk power through a cough that was probably some kind of lung infection on cough drops and bottled water.” Pidge said flatly. “And if you’ve been sick in bed all week, you extra need to get out of the house. Shack. Whatever, the fresh air’ll help you feel better.” Pidge said firmly.

“Will the others be there?” Keith asked after a moment of silence.

“What, you wanna see Lance again?” Pidge was definitely smirking, and Keith hated that he knew his friend’s voice well enough to tell that.

“No.” he huffed, moving to sit up before remembering his phone was still charging. “Just don’t wanna get all of you sick at once.”

“Man, as long as you’re not making out with us, I think we’re good. Hunk always has hand sanitizer in one of his fanny pack things.”

“Why would I be making out with any of you?” Keith frowned. “I may be gay, but I do have standards.”

“Rude.” Pidge huffed. “I mean, Hunk ain’t gonna date anyone, and you’re not my type, but Lance is perfectly single.”

“Did I not just say I have standards.” he replied flatly,

“I know your standards. Lance meets all of them.”

“He’s _obnoxious_.”

“He’s not that bad, once he knows you’re gonna pay attention to him.” Pidge said nonchalantly. “But yeah, Lance and Hunk are def coming. Hunk said he’s gonna bring something to read the Fraunhofer line of those weird rocks, so we can see what they are.”

“Something to read the what line?” Keith frowned.

“Uh, Ms. Curtis called them absorption lines?”

“Oh, those. Cool.” Keith smiled. It wasn’t contact transmission, since Pidge and Hunk and Lance had all handled the weird rock too, so as long as he covered his mouth when he coughed they’d probably be fine. “Yeah, I’ll see you there.” he said with a nod. Even if only Lance showed up, he’d be glad to see another person. Bad jokes and mystifying cultural references were better than nothing.

“Later.”

The phone beeped, and Keith lowered it to look at the screen. He- he hadn’t mentioned that it wasn’t a normal fever, had he? Well, now that he thought about it, he could use this to his advantage...

\---

Pidge looked around, and frowned at the empty stretch of desert they saw. “He said he’d be here.” they mumbled, scanning again for Keith’s distinctive red hoverbike.

“Maybe he fell asleep?” Lance shrugged, starting towards the edge of the crater. “Let’s go, I’m not waiting on mullet-boy.”

“He’s probably just running late.” Hunk said with a reassuring smile and pat on the shoulder. “C’mon, we can get a preliminary reading to show Keith when he-”

A scream from the crater cut Hunk off mid-word, and Pidge sprinted for the edge. “Lance?!” they yelled as the scream cut off abruptly, throwing themself into the crater and skidding down the edge of the hole. Half-melted chunks of rock blocked their view, and they scrambled around the sloped edge of the crater. The ground was warm under their palm, still radiating out the solar energy it had absorbed throughout the day. They caught a glimpse of a grey sneaker vanishing into the thickest mess of meteor shards, and launched themself off the slope.

The floor of the crater scraped along their forearms as they tumbled, and they grabbed a rock about the size of their fist as they rolled to their feet. Lance, when he came into view, was sprawled out like he’d been roughly pushed up against a chunk of meteor and allowed to slide to the ground. But what Pidge’s attention snapped to wasn’t Lance’s slumped form, or the way his head lolled forward. No, Pidge’s eyes locked onto the figure crouched over Lance, one clawed hand reaching for his throat, feline ears sticking up from its head, golden eyes glowing in the moonlight.

Pidge let out their best war cry and charged, rock held high. The thing, because there was no way in hell whatever was hovering over Lance was _human_ , whipped its head around towards them. It yelped, and Pidge brought the rock down towards its head. It caught them by the wrist, and they screamed as the world spun around them. Their back hit the ground hard enough to drive most of the air from their lungs, and then a knee landed on their stomach, finishing the job. They groaned weakly, and the thing kneeling over them snarled.

“Pidge!” Hunk yelled, and they struggled to inhale against the pressure on their diaphragm. “Get off him!” he yelled, and pitched a rock that was at least half the size of Pidge’s head. The yellow-eyed thing flattened itself over Pidge and hissed at Hunk, fur standing on end where it wasn’t hidden under a black T-shirt.

“Guys, wait!” Lance yelped, scrambling to his feet in Pidge’s peripheral vision. “Hunk, don’t-” another rock flew overhead, this time clipping the back of the creature’s skull. It dropped with a groan, and Pidge scrambled out from under it as their friends ran over. Hunk immediately started checking their wrist, which kinda hurt where the creature had grabbed it, but Lance ran to the creature’s side. It groaned again as Lance turned it onto its back, and Pidge stiffened at the sight yellow glow when its eyes slid open.

“Lance, look out!”

“I hate all of you.” the thing groaned in- in Keith’s voice. What the fuck?

“Like I was _trying_ to tell you idiots.” Lance huffed, helping the yellow-eyed thing with Keith’s voice sit up. “It’s just Keith.”

“How can you be sure?” Pidge challenged, pulling their wrist away from Hunk. “It could be a mimic or something.”

“Please, like anything but Keith would _choose_ to have a mullet this awful.” Lance gestured at the thing’s dark hair, which, now that Pidge looked, was cut in a rather familiar style.

“What is it with you and my mullet?” Keith snapped, ears flicking back against his skull briefly.

“It’s an offense to hair stylists everywhere.” Lance fired back effortlessly, standing and offering Keith a hand.

“You’re not a stylist.” Keith pointed out, grabbing Lance’s wrist.

“No.” Lance grunted slightly as he pulled Keith to his feet. “But one of my cousins is. Come down to Veradera with me next break, she can give you a trim.” Lance grinned and poked one of Keith’s ears, which promptly flattened against his skull. “Or should we take you to a pet grooming place?”

“Okay, am I the only one confused about why Keith is purple and fluffy?” Hunk said, cutting off Keith’s undoubtedly indignant reply.

“Obviously, he’s an alien.” Lance said, gesturing at the chunks of meteor littered around them. “He cut his hand last time we were out here, remember?”

“And I had his blood under my nails all weekend.” Pidge rebutted, crossing their arms. “If it was the rocks, I had his contaminated blood on me through like three bags of chips. I should be purple and fluffy too.”

“Good point.” Lance frowned, framing his chin with two fingers. Pidge highly suspected he’d picked it up from an anime or something.

“How did you have my blood under your nails all weekend?” Keith frowned, disbelief etched clearly on his face. Pidge shrugged. They’d had worse under their nails, and probably for longer too.

“Maybe he was already an alien?” Hunk suggested after a few moments of silence.

“My mom was perfectly human.” Keith frowned, crossing his arms.

“But you never knew your dad.” Lance said quickly. “You said that last month, right?”

“My mom was Texan.” Keith’s frown deepened into a scowl. “And barely twenty. It’s not that uncommon.”

“But still, your dad might’ve been an alien.” Pidge said, nodding slowly. “which would explain why none of us reacted to these rocks. We’re just human.”

“ _I’m_ just human.” Keith insisted.

“Don’t really look it right now, dude.” Hunk pointed out.

“How about this?” Pidge suggested. “Hunk gets some Fraunhofer readings on those weird rocks, then we sneak Keith into the Garrison and break into the nurse’s office to run some tests?”

“Tests like what?” Keith frowned.

“To see if you’re human.” Pidge grinned. Even if they got caught, this was going to be one hell of a story.

**Author's Note:**

> Did you know there are a bunch of sites that let you calculate the effect of a crater impact? Because I did not know that when I started writing this chapter, and now I do. (also I should be working on literally any of my five other WiPs, but I am **WEAK** )


End file.
